Understanding the Singularity (News and Events, April 1-8 2000)
From: John Smart
SingularityWatch.com Community, List 3
News and Events for April 1-8, 2000
Item #1. News (Tech Futurist Seminar Report). Well friends,
the Stanford "Spiritual Robots" Seminar on 4/1 was quite enjoyable, and
packed to standing room capacity (one poor soul fainted). It was great
seeing so many luminaries of the computer industry in one place, all
loosely debating when (not if) computers are going to "wake up" and the
dangers therein. It's available on webcast or video if you missed it
live:
1. Dr. Dobb's Journal will webcast this event in late April. You might
bookmark their site at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.technetcast.com/)
in your "Educational Webcasts" folder (webcasts work best on high-speed
modems.) The location will be:
(0000,0000,fefehttp://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_program.html?program_id=82)
Dr. Dobb's (a programmer's magazine) is a good news source for
computer-related events in our accellerating economy. They are a bit
technical, but always fun, and have a good section on computer history at
their ddj.com site.
2. Videos are going to soon be available at $24.60 from the Stanford
Channel
(0000,0000,fefehttp://tsc.stanford.edu/form.html),
where you can order one. I will be purchasing the video, and if anyone
would like to borrow it for a few days, I'll mail it to you book rate, as
a loan between friends. Just drop me a line.
3. Extropy.org has said they will be doing a post-symposium website. You
might check their site by the end of April.
4. Wired Magazine has a writeup on the conference, but you might skip it,
as it is not very informative
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,35106,00.html).
But their April cover article by Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun) is
definitely worth reading if you have the time (see below). Thanks to
John Davis for this reference.
Item #2. News (Technology Assessment Article). "Why The
Future Doesn't Need Us", by Bill Joy. You can find this excellent cover
article in April's Wired magazine, and free at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html).
It is long (20 pages) but worth skimming on a lazy weekend if you want to
understand the Big Picture on the potential downside of Genetics,
Nanotechnology, and Robotics (GNR) technologies. Bill Joy also
summarized his argument in 20 minutes at the Spiritual Robots conference,
so the video or webcast is a time-economical way to hear his
perspective.
Editorial: Investment Outlook for Biotech
Bill's analysis again raises the question of whether Biotechnology
companies, and even some computation-oriented Biotech ventures, will be
able to demonstrate exponential growth in coming decades. It seems to me
that while biotech knowledge will clearly continue to exponentiate,
applications will always be hampered by legitimate political regulations,
and so will show a slower rate of growth than other tech industries.
We've recently seen the careful European reaction to Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMO's). Now we have Bill's eloquent picture of the imminent
social dangers of genetic technologies. By contrast, the Information
Technology sector will, if my beliefs about its self-balancing nature are
correct, never face such issues in its exponentiation. I suggest you
discuss these long term growth issues with your investment analyst, and
carefully evaluate your Biotech holdings. I believe that core IT
companies make a lot more sense as the main element of your tech
portfolio, except in cases where you have unique and compelling
insight.
Editorial: Understanding Immune Systems as Defensive Technologies
Bill states in his article that trying to establish immunity
against the downsides of the GNR technologies may not be possible, and he
cites the problems of autoimmune diseases as an example that immune
systems can create their own problems. Here is an important excerpt:
"But the shield [against Nanotechnology dangers] he [Erik Drexler, in
_Engines of Creation_] proposed would itself be extremely dangerous -
nothing could prevent it from developing autoimmune problems and
attacking the biosphere itself. [11] Similar difficulties apply to the
construction of shields against robotics and genetic engineering. These
technologies are too powerful to be shielded against in the time frame of
interest; even if it were possible to implement defensive shields, the
side effects of their development would be at least as dangerous as the
technologies we are trying to protect against."
To me, this is a core issue of Bill Joy's argument. If it is determined
to be true, then I believe his proposal that we "relinquish" (slow down,
regulate) the development of certain GNR technologies makes political
sense. I agree that it is wise in the short run to restrict the
dissemination and carefully monitor the use of certain genetics
technologies, as a national security issue. This is particularly
important because we have historically underfunded our efforts to
understand and improve our defensive systems (immunology and vaccine
research). Ray Kurzweil has also stated he might support relinquishment
of particular technologies, and I would imagine he is also considering
this as a short term strategy, and primarily in the area of genetics.
But I am hopeful that Bill's longer-run assessment with regard to our
ability to develop defenses may be too conservative.
I believe the perspective outlined in Bill's article may not convey an
appropriate understanding of how well immune systems actually work, and
how very rare (and usually much more benign) autoimmune diseases are by
comparison to other disease. Without going further into particulars
(which I will do in my upcoming book), there are good arguments that the
immune system does its job as well as it has been historically needed to
do it, that it could work much better if need be, and that it allows a
low background level of pathogen invasion into the human organism for
valuable evolutionary purposes.
Most importantly, it can be argued that immune systems in general,
because they use both simple and complex multiply-overlapping, redundant
defense mechanisms, can quickly make it statistically impossible for any
informationally-simple invader (which must use, by definition, only
simple offensive and defensive strategies) to destabilize a
redundantly-designed complex system. Usually, such damage is preventable,
and at worst, can be highly localized, and thus minimally damaging to a
redundant system. Thus "simple" threats can be progressively eliminated,
and only "complex" systems are long term threats to other complex
systems. If it is also true that complex systems become both
self-balancing and constrained as a function of their complexity, then we
live in a much more stable world than Bill is suggesting.
As people like Stephanie Forrest continue their work with Artificial
Immune Systems in computer security, I expect we will see exponentially
less threat from computer viruses over time. For more information, see
Stephanie's publications on this topic, and her upcoming conference
(7/8/2000, Las Vegas, NV) at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.msci.memphis.edu/~dasgupta/geccows-ais.html).
Fortunately, this is a testable hypothesis-in the next few years we will
be able to understand both human and computer viruses (and other simple
replicating devices) as either a statistically growing threat (Bill's
view) or a decreasing one (my view) as a direct function of the
complexity of any self-protecting system.
I think Bill Joy is right that we need to keep a close eye on whether or
not we can actually develop exponentially better complex defenses against
informationally simple threats. We also need a better understanding of
the rare circumstances where complex systems dysregulate and create their
own threats, which is a separate issue. Fortunately, I believe that
evidence to date provides good (if premature) arguments that "defense" of
future complex systems will be possible in the way that Erik Drexler most
optimistically imagines it. Thanks to Bill Joy for inviting
correspondence on this issue.
Item #3. News (Political Report). April 5. Freedom House
just published its "Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil
Liberties", which monitors the spread of Democracy. It is available
online at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.freedomhouse.org/survey99/).
In brief summary, more than 58% of the world's population now lives under
democratic rule, vs. 12.4% in 1900. This also appears very likely to be
an exponential growth curve - the last ten years saw electoral
democracies grow from 69 to 120 countries (out of 192). Wow! What a
great time to be alive. To be witness to so much positive change.
Two organizations you might consider adding to your "Social
Action/Philanthropy" folder are Freedom House
(0000,0000,fefehttp://freedomhouse.org/),
an international champion of civil rights and a leading democracy
watcher, and the Carter Center
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.cartercenter.org/support.html),
run by former President Carter, and focused on human rights, democracy,
and health in developing countries.
Editorial: The Carter Center. No matter what you thought
of Carter while in office (he is said to have had difficulty learning how
to work with the legislative branch of government), he may be the most
effective former president we've had yet. I consider him a mentor in
that sense, an example of living your dream, focusing on balance, and
effectiveness in "retirement."
Editorial: Considering Democracy and Complexity. Marvin
Minsky in his classic _Society of Mind_ outlined "heterarchies" (brain
agents which must share resources, rather than work as "hierarchies",
which deny resources to those agents lower in the hierarchy). This was
the first time I recall realizing that both hierarchical and
heterarchichal (democratic) systems of control are fundamentally
necessary to complex social systems. It has always made sense to me that
democracies, as opposed to all other forms of government, should increase
the rate of meaningful communication among their citizenry with regard to
social issues, thus increasing selective pressures for the development of
useful ideas by our elected representatives, and therefore causing social
systems to adapt more quickly over time than in any alternative social
structures. It would be nice to see a formal argument for this.
I would appreciate any List member's email advice on books, theories, or
models which make the above case more eloquently than I have done here
(ie, the case that democracies - political systems that balance
hierarchical and heterarchical control - may be the most computationally
maximized social systems in an information-rich environment). This would
be helpful to share to the community.
Item #4: News (Book). Internet Voting and Electronic
Democracy
I wish to direct you to the best book I currently recommend reading on
democracy, _The Electronic Republic; Reshaping Democracy in the
Information Age_ by Lawrence K. Grossman. It is available from Amazon at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670861294/qid=955049419/sr=1-38/102-5436686-1439227).
It is 290 pages, and quite well written. Grossman, former president of
PBS (and NBC News) discusses the exponentially increasing impact of mass
media and the Internet on democracy. Specifically, he explores our
potential for continuing to increase the value of the educational
"feedback" that our citizenry get from society, by increasing their
participation in democracy using electronic systems. As you may know,
Arizona, California, and Alaska are planning some degree of Internet
balloting in the upcoming presidential elections. The Brookings
Institution and Cisco Systems have published a nice essay on the future
of Internet Voting
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20000120.htm).
California has also started its own Internet voting task force
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/ivote/).
Editorial: These systems are an important step toward a
participatory society, where "e-Prefrences" are built into every
important social system. One important element of these electronic
systems is that they are easily replicable. Thus once we have slowly and
gradually built consensus for some level of electronic participatory
democracy, we should expect exponential spread of these tools to other
democracies, just as we have seen the exponential spread of democracy
itself in recent years.
Item #5. News (Tech Announcement). IBM Announces 30% Faster
Chip
April 3, 2000: IBM announced today a new manufacturing technique ("low-k
dielectric") based on a Dow Chemical materials technology ("SiLK") that
will provide a 30% improvment in computing speed and performance. IBM
stated that with the new chips, typical laptop batteries will last "twice
as long." (I'll believe _that_ when I see it...!). Mass production with
the new technique and material will begin within the year. A non
technical press release on this is available at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.chips.ibm.com/news/2000/0403_lowk.html).
Editorial: Moore's Law continues on schedule. If you don't
have any IBM stock, you might discuss this with your analyst. They are a
consistent long term performer, and relentless innovator. Consider
supporting them with your capital vote, my friends, even if it's only a
share or two!
Item #6. Event. April 22, Earth Day 2000
I heartily recommend marking your calendars for 4/22, Earth Day 2000.
You can find your local events at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.earthday.net/).
A good group to consider adding to your "Annual Events/Conferences"
folder. Every April 22ish (coming of Spring, shortly after the daylight
savings change).
Editorial: Earth Day is a great tradition for annually
educating yourself on things you can do to try to keep your use of
technology from creating problems, and a lot of interesting volunteer
organizations you can consider supporting at some level. It's nice to
see the Green movement embracing technology (Internet, low pollution
cars) ever more these days as a tool for social change. A great day to
appreciate the bounties we have been given so far by our amazing
self-improving system.
Item #7. News (Legislative Announcement). "Amber's Plan:"
An Electronic Tool in Child Abduction. This emergency radio broadcast
plan began in Dallas in 1996 has been used in parts of most states to
date. It has been credited so far with the return of at least eight
chldren, including one nine year old girl who was immediately released
from her abductor's truck on an interstate highway just after a
broadcast. Curently 5,000 children are abducted each year, and the FBI
estimates 50-150 of these are murdered after abduction annually. A
Washington state study found 75% of those murders occur within 3 hours of
abduction. The Emergency Alert System (formerly Emergency Broadcast
System) is already designed for immediate broadcast on radio and
television, preceded by a variety of distinctive tones. The Amber's Plan
use of EAS is not intended for runaways or parental abductions, the two
leading causes of child abduction. It is named after Amber Hagerman, a 9
year old TX child abducted and killed in 1996. USA today's article is
available at
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000406/2117384s.htm)
For an early website outlining how this was originally implemented in
Dallas, visit
(0000,0000,fefehttp://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/dpd/amberplan/ambers_plan.htm).
Editorial: This success story appears to me to be yet
another example that the most extreme human behavior, as it is
statistically rare, can be quite powerfully regulated as we focus the
attention of a balanced system on its infrequent occurance. Such classes
of problems are quite responsive to this communication-based solution,
and a positive feedback loop is created. Understanding how these
solutions work enables us to understand how increasing stability can be
created as our social systems slide toward ever greater communications
and information-processing complexity.
As long as entry into the pre-existing EAS communications channel is
protected from abuse, we should expect the number of non-runaway,
non-parental abductions to steadily decrease over time in a local area,
without having to use more airtime than has already been reserved for the
EAS system. The channel will then progressively open itself up after
intensive initial use, or may then be used to publicize less extreme
abduction cases as well, perhaps on a frequency-regulated basis, or
depending on local community preferences.
Of course, the sooner everyone has cell phones and wireless net links,
the sooner we have more channels with which to operate. Imagine being
able to patch in an "emergency broadcast alert" to every cell phone and
PDA currently operating in a circumscribed area of Dallas, within minutes
after a perpetrator was seen abducting a child in that area (or a road
rage event occurs, or any other local socially reprehensible act where
there is signficant community interest in eliminating the behavior).
Imagine again, after the initial flooding of that channel, how much less
common such behavior would become.
Enabling such systems will allow us to establish ever-greater balance in
the present day as we undergo inevitable exponential increases in our
social complexity in the remaining years before the transition. Amber's
Plan gives us a glimpse of one facet of the coming wireless society of
the late 00's.
Thanks for your attention. Any stories of interest to the community are
greatly appreciated.
[Mission: To share news, events, and editorials helpful to understanding
our accellerating progression to the Singularity, investing in companies
and technologies which promote its balanced development, and improving
human interdependence and ethics as we approach the transition. Reported
for the educated nonspecialist audience.]
My Best,
John Smart
San Diego, CA
jonsmart@san.rr.com